


The Prisoner

by Ashling



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: A little star-crossed tbh, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Book: The Last Battle (Narnia), Emeth: raised in highly militaristic society in which the politicking sometimes leads to filicide, M/M, Pining, Tirian: raised by very nice dad living in essentially fairyland, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Week of Ficlets, Week of Ficlets: Unforgotten 2020, and yet..........THEM, as constructed by Lewis like it's really fucken hard, guys it's nigh impossible to fully deal with the inherent racism of Calormene-Narnian relations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:20:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25795018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: [Emeth] was young and tall and slender, and even rather beautiful in the dark, haughty, Calormene way...And Jewel whispered in the King's ear, "By the Lion's Mane, I almost love this young warrior, Calormene though he be."
Relationships: Emeth/Tirian (Narnia)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Unforgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/gifts).



It was a double disgrace to have been captured by this king, of all kings, Emeth thought bitterly. This king of a tiny wasteland that should have been a colony long ago if not for sheer geographical luck; this king whose armies were so small that he had to take part in setting up camp and cooking; this king who ate eel and pretended—badly, he was not a good actor—to like it. Such was the way of the world. He had asked Tash for glory, and he had gotten Narnia instead. Narnia, and a wounded shoulder.

Up close, King Tirian was even worse. He had hair like straw and, as with most Narnians, his pale skin looked sickly. And he bit his bottom lip like a child when he concentrated, as he was concentrating just then, over Emeth's wounded shoulder, peeling the cloth of his tunic back where it stuck with dried blood to the wound. When the worst of it peeled away and Emeth began bleeding all over again, he made a choked, cut-off sound in the back of his throat and hated himself for it.

"Does it befit a King to play nursemaid to his prisoners?" he said through gritted teeth.

"It does not befit a King to watch his prisoners die of an infection," said Tirian, without looking up. "Steady, now," and his hand was warm on Emeth's neck while he flushed out the wound with water. For several minutes, it was all Emeth could do not to shake from the pain, but by the time his arm was dried and his shoulder bandaged, he knew he had rather been an ass.

"Forgive me," he said to his boots.

"There is nothing to forgive," said Tirian mildly, picking up the bag of medical supplies about to go, and it was his gentleness more than anything else that made Emeth feel he had to tell the whole truth.

"My pride speaks in place of my honor," Emeth said. "I am not accustomed to..." He flushed. "When Tash brings us low, he reveals our true natures. Mine is less than noble, I am afraid."

"On the contrary," said Tirian. "The manner of your capture renders you the most noble Calormene I had yet to encounter."

Emeth couldn't look at him. "It was cowardice," he said. He could still remember how wide Rishda's eyes were in begging for his life. And that—that brat of a boy who had captured him, he had known Emeth's weakness at once. _Blade down or your captain dies._ And he couldn't stand to watch that. He would have happily stood his ground and fought to the death, but not after watching his captain killed in cold blood. After plenty of battles, Emeth had learned he had a very peculiar sort of weak stomach.

"It was honor," said Tirian, and then, before Emeth could reply, he added: "A Narnian honor."

 _Much good that does me,_ Emeth did not say. He retained at least enough courtliness to know when he was being offered an olive branch. "Thank you," he said.

Tirian smiled. When he smiled, he was not so terribly ugly, really. "I really am glad we didn't have to kill you," Tirian said. "I was rather dreading it. I didn't want to watch you die."

Narnian honor was a strange thing indeed. Imagine using _dread_ as part of one's vocabulary! But Emeth knew what he meant.

In that slant of sunset light, Tirian's green eyes were alight with flecks of gold. Emeth's heart sank, and finally he swore.

"What's wrong?" said Tirian.

"Uproot the camp right now," said Emeth. "If you're not gone within half an hour, you'll be discovered. I know the General's marching-orders; there's reinforcements coming up the Crow's-Foot road tonight. And now that they have some Talking Birds on their side, you're bound to be spotted."

Tirian merely looked perplexed. "Beg pardon," he said, "but you're a people of conquerors and liars, are you not?"

"As you are a people who are not made of _people_ at all," said Emeth, "but that's not the point. You can stay and find out what it's like to be a Calormene captive, if you like. You're royalty. It won't be a very long captivity, nor a particularly pleasant one." He had seen things.

For a long moment, Tirian stared at him. Then he got to his feet, and started shouting orders. In ten minutes flat, the campsite had been uprooted, and Emeth was riding behind Tirian on his enormous destrier, hands still tied, shielded by Tirian's body against the crisp western wind. Even through leather armor, Tirian was warm.

It could be worse, Emeth decided. And maybe there was something, after all, in Narnian honor. 


	2. Chapter 2

Every evening, when the shadows grew long and the horses grew tired, Emeth's anticipation mounted higher and higher, and by the time darkness had fallen and he was in the king's tent, he had reached a pitch of intensity that compared only to battle. He knew better, but his heart beat fast anyway. _He's tired,_ he would tell himself when Tirian rolled over on his side, with his back pointedly to Emeth, or, _he's pondering strategy for tomorrow._ Occasionally Emeth thought that his chances at the king would be far better if he wasn't the king's prisoner and in the king's tent, maybe if he was, oh, one of those hooved men, and had to sneak out of his own tent.

Ridiculous, the whole of it. What did he have to do, strip naked and climb into the wrong bedroll? He would have done it, too, only some of the Talking Animals had absolutely no sense of privacy and would poke their heads in to announce pertinent military news at any hour of day or night, and he had no intention of being seen naked by a Talking Squirrel.

He didn't _like_ the King, mind you—he still knew that Narnia would fall, eventually, and that this whole resistance was the useless last gasp of a weak and backward country; that Tirian's eternal hopefulness was one of his most ridiculous qualities, and he had many ridiculous qualities; that his own wretched part in keeping all of this going had made his own honor fall fathoms away from where it had once been—but a passing passion for foreign royalty was not an inconceivable thing to fall upon a man, as even Prince Rabadash himself could say. A man wanted, and then he had, and then he moved on, and that was the right way of it. Even the Narnians knew this. They had their stories about wandering knights.

Captain Rishda had died a couple days ago when they had been attacked by wasteland goblins, and Emeth knew this meant that the time was right. He no longer had any obligation towards anybody but himself, and he could escape. The Narnians made for decent enough warriors, he had to admit that much, but they were unbelievably horrible gaolers. Emeth knew almost everything there was to know about their night watch, and where the weapons were, and which of the horses wasn't a Talking Horse, and where they were on the map, and how to get away. And he wasn't at all afraid of being recaptured. Even the Blacksea pirates, who were mostly escaped slaves and had no military training at all, knew to cow their captives a little. Emeth had been told on good information that he was better off throwing himself into the ocean than falling back into their hands if he'd escaped from them with any kind of strategic intelligence. But no, he could picture being recaptured exactly; he knew which of the centaurs would look grave and disappointed, which of the bears would look heartbroken, which of the Mice would want to duel him, which of the Dwarfs would grumble darkly about punishment, and finally, he knew that Tirian would listen to them all and then do nothing worse than tie Emeth up a bit more. Which was nothing. Emeth was good with rope.

Which was why Tirian should have known that the rope burns were a ruse. After all, Emeth had been with the Narnians for some two weeks now and not complained a word about the rope, or anything else, for that matter. Not out of pride, but out of the simple truth that this was a far more comfortable situation than most of his training days had been, so he had nothing to complain about. But all day long, he had chafed at the restraints round his wrists, and now he was close to getting what he wanted. Tirian only touched him when he was injured, and his shoulder was healing up well enough that it didn't need daily checks, so he'd made himself an opportunity.

The original plan had been _the king dead, then run_ , but somehow it had changed along the way to _the king in bed, the king dead, run,_ and now he was at _the king in bed, run_. It was acceptable, Emeth told himself, because he would come back to capture Tirian later. If he prevented Tirian's execution, then Tirian would owe him a life-debt and they could ride to the southern colony wars together and Tirian would see that Calormene honor had its merits too, because Emeth wouldn't do anything to Tirian that Tirian hadn't already done to him—which was more or less only rope and subpar stew. And turning his back to him at night, which annoyed Emeth badly because they both knew, even with his hands tied, Emeth could throttle him in his sleep. Just because he wasn't going to kill Tirian didn't mean that Tirian was allowed to think that he was safe. Yes, the Narnian king was very annoying. Emeth would be glad to be done with him.

In the end, Tirian only became more annoying. He cut the rope at once, when Emeth asked for him to loosen it, and he examined the raw red marks with an look on his face as though he himself had been the one hurt, and then he pottered off only to return with a jar of honey ointment and a penitent expression on his strange round face.

"Could you?" said Emeth, gesturing to the jar, because at this point his heart was beating fast, like he was nervous—which he wasn't—and the whole plan seemed a lot less clever than it had before, and he wanted it done with. He was rewarded immediately, because Tirian flushed, and murmured an apology, and squatted down closer. He clasped Emeth's hand in his own, rested Emeth's elbow on his knee, and used two fingers to spread the ointment onto the reddened skin of Emeth's wrists. It hardly stung, and in fact the rope burn hardly needed ointment, but Tirian had all the attention of a painter restoring a great work, and Emeth saw no need to stop him. When Tirian bent his head to inspect his work, one of Emeth's curls brushed his forehead, and he flinched back. That was the moment Emeth had wanted. That was the moment he was supposed to kiss him. But instead, he sat frozen while Tirian bid him a good night, and put the jar aside, and went into his bedroll and _rolled onto his side again_ and there was that same view of Tirian's back that Emeth had had for two weeks and counting! He could have shouted. 

Then he noticed that he was entirely untied and the King was falling asleep and he could just run. Had Tirian thought of that? He wasn't an utter fool. Most likely Tirian had thought of that. Emeth wavered.

No, no, he decided. He had a plan. It would be better to stick to the plan. _The king in bed, then run._

Only how?

After spending far too long staring at the silhouette of Tirian against the firelight that pulsed against the thin walls of the tent, Emeth finally turned over too and stared at the far wall.

Tomorrow, he decided. He'd figure it out tomorrow.


End file.
